The Cretan Runner: The Story of the German Occupation

By George Psychoundakis and George Psychoudakis

Book Overview

First published in 1955, this translation by Patrick Leigh Fermor, tells the account of the Resistance in Crete, from the German invasion to the liberation by one of its most active participants. Psychoundakis was an intermediary between the various groups of British on the island despite great personal danger.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140273220
• ISBN13: 9780140273229
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Penguin Uk
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 1.0" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A Cretan shepherd in the British intelligence service in WW2

I came across this book on a holiday in Crete. It looked like one of thousands of war stories. But it was not. It turned out to be one of the most absorbing books I ever read. The book is a completely true and accurate story about a Cretan dispatch runner in the British intelligence service seen from the Cretan side. As his translator and former superior intelligence officer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, put it: "...like a Rualla beduin, by sudden miracle of literacy, had given us the Arab version of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom!" By some terrible error the author and dispatch runner, Georgio Psychoundakis, was imprisoned as a deserter after the war. He spent 16 months in jail in spite of beeing honoured by the British with BEM. There, in jail, in desperation he wrote down everthing he could remember from his time in the British service. The reading of this very well written book has painted a most fascinating picture of Crete, its people and their resistance to the blood soaked german occupation. All seen through the eyes of the dispatch runner. Through this book he has given a face to all the anonymus and ordinary people of Crete who fought for their freedom of their country. The book can also be used as a most magnetic travelling guide covering the sentral Crete. In later years Georgio Psychoudakis translated the works of Homer to Cretan dialect. En impressive feat for a scholar. Not to speak of a shepherd with two or three years of occational education. He is now (2005) 85 yars and living in Xania, Crete.